#ResistTrump today by starting a sustained fightback for the ACA

The House has now joined the Senate in voting for the legislation that could pave the way for the GOP’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (also known as Obamacare). The GOP says it will have the final repeal bill drafted by January 27th.

In other words, get ready to fight for the ACA as if your life depended on it. Because it literally might.

Make it a two-pronged attack: on the phone and in the streets.

ON THE PHONE: Over the next two weeks, we need to barrage our members of congress with calls and emails telling them why repeal would be a disaster.

If you want to start today, see my posts here and here for information and advice on how to call/write your reps — from basic stuff on how to find their contact info as well as tips from former congressional staffers on how to make your calls and emails effective.

You can find some sample scripts to help you call about the ACA (as well as about Trump’s terrible cabinet picks) here.

Don’t limit yourself to one set of calls over the next two weeks. Call, and call again, and then call again. If you can’t get through, leave a message. And then get ready to call again. Use any excuse you can to call. If the ACA repeal will affect you personally, tell them your story. If it will affect someone you care for, tell their story.

Comments

My one regret is that, not being an American citizen and not living in America, I can’t actually easily do anything to resist Trump. However, elections are coming up over here in Germany, so I can at least vote there to try and stop the AfD, NPD and ALFA.

Thanks, Falconer. Elections should be sometime between 23/8 and 22/10 (Germany doesn’t have a fixed date for elections), most likely either 17/9 or 24/9. Obviously, NPD is unlikely to gain any ground, but AfD is likely to make significant gains and will probably have some amount of representation in the Bundestag. I’ll likely vote either SPD or B90/Die Grünen, both left-wing parties, with B90/Die Grünen being somewhat further to the left.

Of course, saying, I’ll vote in the election assumes that Germany will still exist and won’t have been invaded by Russia or destroyed in a nuclear war.

Good job everyone! Keep calling. Busy signals are a good sign! Just hang up and try again later. Don’t let their phones stop ringing! The ACA’s so incredibly important, to so many people. You’re literally saving lives by calling. Keep it up!

As your nym (autocorrect made that Nymeria – GOT fans are go!) indicates, we aren’t alone. I’m in Britain and wanting the best for you.

I’ll be going on a sister march in London on 21/1 (or 1/21 for our transatlantic siblings) to support the progressive movement despite Brexit, Trump and a thousand other regressive steps. I’d love to hear of Mammotheers at other sister marches, and meet up with any in London.

Keep calling everyone- if they’re already being overwhelmed that is a good sign, but everyone who can do something needs to in order to keep this up. Anything you can do is a help I’m sure. Keep going!

@Falconer
Not the former, no. Not only shouldn’t Obamacare be repealed, it simply doesn’t need to be. Nothing about single payer requires an Obamacare repeal, AFAICT. Does it? Cos one could just pass a new healthcare law, and have that bill make any provisions in Obamacare that conflict with it obsolete. No separate repeal bill. Right? Doing the repeal separate and beforehand seems like it’s just asking for trouble

Nothing about single payer requires an Obamacare repeal, AFAICT. Does it?

The idea is that after the ACA is repealed, things will be so hellish that people will demand Medicare for all, or some similar single-payor scheme. It’s similar to the reason why a Berniebro might have voted for Trump, and similarly misguided and privileged.

Oh god no, I don’t want ACA repealed and all of us dumped in the shitter. I even hate the phrase “repeal and replace” because it’s what the Rs have preached for years now because they hate that the first black president is a D.

Incidentally, Trump just tried to torpedo LL Bean. Lisa Bean, who’s on the LLB board and has her own lobsterbusiness, made a private donation to Trump, so he tweeted his thanks, linked her to LLB, and said “Buy LL Bean!” then tagged her lobster company. People have already started boycotting … the WRONG COMPANY.

Trump tweeting favorably about a company I haven’t done business with in many years will not make me like it.

From the reading I’ve done on the subject, the (Fox) news was originally that a small group was trying to get more exposure for their coming boycott of LL Bean. Linda Bean came on, and made a fair case that it didn’t make much sense to boycott them. Trump tweets in support. The Streisand Effect takes hold, and millions of people who didn’t know anything about a possible boycott hear about it.

I posted this on the Ben Carson thread, then realized it probably belongs here.

There are any number of parliamentary tricks that can be used by Congresscritters to avoid taking responsibility for votes. One of the most venerable is to vote for a bill, and then vote against providing the funds to carry it out.

In the Senate, bills are passed by a simple majority, but it takes 60 votes to end debate and proceed to voting on the bill. This is how the filibuster comes about. A “reconciliation bill” cannot be filibustered but can only deal with money; thus it can be used to strip funding but not repeal Obamacare. The Republicans are currently trying out the idea of threatening to disapprove the continuation of CHIP — the children’s health insurance plan, which must be reauthorized this year; the Democrats don’t have enough votes to continue it, but the “optics” of killing health insurance for kids is pretty terrible.

The Republican problem is that 75% of USians don’t want Obamacare repealed unless there is an adequate replacement. They could do it in a sneaky manner by ending the unpopular individual mandate, which might get 8 Democratic votes and would send the insurance companies scurrying away — they aren’t going to let you wait until you get sick to buy a policy and still agree to cover pre-existing conditions. But there is a substantial part of the Republican base that wants Obamacare killed instantly by being bashed over the head with a blunt instrument with plenty of resulting gore, and then the Republicans would have to own the resulting chaos.

(1) Years ago, I read that they used prison labor. I’m all for the rehabilitation of and job training for prisoners, but what I read convinced me that this arrangement was more about L.L. Bean being able to pay prisoners less than people on the outside. Bonus: prisoners can’t unionize! I can’t find anything online about this, so I probably got my information from a flyer.

(2) As has been widely reported in the past couple of days, L.L. Bean makes a lot of its stuff in China, where they can pay employees less than they would pay US employees and where environmental regulations are lax. Of course, L.L. Bean would have us think that all is not lost: they have an entire department devoted to goods made in the USA!

Yay.

Here’s the blurb from their “Made in the USA” department:

Well-crafted, high-quality pieces made from premium fabrics and materials from all over the world.

I work as a copy editor, not an attorney or a translator, but I consider my work to be the task of translating English into (easily understood) English.

Translation: The cotton is grown, woven, and dyed in India. Then it’s shipped to L.L. Bean in the US of A, where they make it into bags.

I used to buy a lot of my clothes from L.L. Bean and J.Jill. As the trend to manufacture goods overseas intensified, I focused on buying only what they made in the USA. After a while, I had to concede defeat.

Nowadays, I buy most of my clothes, linens, and other household goods from fair trade outlets (for example, Patagonia, Peopletree, Marketplace of India, SERRV, Ten Thousand Villages, and Fair Indigo). When the products are fair trade, I’m not concerned about whether they’re made in the USA. I don’t have a lot of money, and these products are pricier than those found in the big-box stores. But they are better made and will last longer. Look for sales!

If it’s not possible to buy what I need from a fair trade outlet, I buy organic, which protects workers from exposure to toxic chemicals.

Or I buy from my local coop grocery stores, which vet their products with regard to quality, workers’ rights, consumer safety, and so on.

Thrift stores and consignment stores are another good choice. I bought a huge stainless steel stockpot at a thrift store recently for $8.00.

All this said, I recognize that not everyone can buy from these outlets.

Luckily, we’ve all got lots of ways to express our politics.

On Slate.com, L. V. Anderson says this about the controversy:

Linda Bean’s views seem noxious, but once you start boycotting companies with Trump supporters on their boards of directors, you’ll quickly find that there’s nowhere left to shop.

I’m happy to report that she’s wrong. (Not to mention the fact that Linda Bean is accused of contributing five times the legal amount to the campaign of President-elect Trump.)

Wondering | January 13, 2017 at 3:44 pm
I wish the Dems had abbreviated it to the Patient Protection Act instead of the Affordable Care Act. PR might have gone better.

I don’t think that would have helped, honestly.

Once the Republicans branded it “Obamacare”, that was it. Anyone who hated Obama immediately hated the ACA because it was associated with a (BLACK) Democrat.

It’s gotten to the point where many people (mostly smug-ass Trump supporters) who are on the ACA who also hate Obama think that Obamacare and the ACA are two entirely different programs, and they believe that repealing Obamacare will have no effect on their healthcare services at all.

Fingers crossed that the ACA isn’t destroyed or de-funded – it isn’t perfect, but you don’t solve that by making it worse. People’s lives and health depend on them affording medical care.

Like No Man Rules Alone, I’m not in the States, so I can’t get in on the calling Congress part. But I encourage people from all over the place to join protests that oppose Trump, and racism, sexism, and inequality.

Thank you for posting this, David. Sadly, it will not be possible to stop repeal if the Repubs prove to be united on doing it. But we can ensure that political price is high, and that may give some Republicans pause.

Already, I hear, some Republican governors are expressing concern about how this will affect their states. So I’d just like to add to David’s suggestions, if you live in a state with a Republican governor, especially one in a state that accepted the Medicaid expansion, why not give the governor a call and encourage them in expressing concern to their fellow Republicans in Congress?

As congressional Republicans move forward on plans to quickly repeal and ― less quickly ― replace President Barack Obama’s health care law, a wide variety of industry and political influencers are trying to slow their progress. Among the most persuasive may be a set of Republican governors who are fearful about losing the substantial health and monetary benefits from the law that their states currently enjoy.

On Friday morning, Politico reported on five such GOP governors who have been publicly calling on lawmakers to consider keeping the portion of the Affordable Care Act that supports the expansion of Medicaid in states that choose to.

Behind the scenes, these same governors are also working to persuade lawmakers from their states and those who have purview over the repeal and replace strategy that it would be wise to keep some portion of the federal matching funds for states that have pursued Medicaid expansion.

In a related matter, does anyone know where I can find list of inauguration day protests? I keep reading there are protests planned all over but I can never find out any information about any of them but the DC one.

After the election, I wrote to my congressman (R) expressing my concerns about the repeal of the ACA, telling him that it helped me and millions of others, and asking him to please have a replacement in mind if they truly have to repeal. He sent me back a pretty patronizing reply. He basically stated that, while ‘a few’ (har) people had been helped by the ACA, its costs were too out of control, they need to open things up to sell insurance across state lines, blah blah blah, same old talking points. Talk about a disappointing exercise in futility.

I’m participating in the general strike on the 20th and the women’s march on the 21st. Might do the march that’s happening in my city on the 20th, but details are still sketchy. Might just save up my energy for the 21st. Plus I feel like people are trying to steal the spotlight from the women’s march with the march on the 20th.

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.